The Characteristics of Landslides Induced by the Wenchuan Earthquake Based on High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing Images

Abstract

The Ms = 8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake (May 12, 2008) induced many landslides in wide area; however, it is difficult to investigate by field work thoroughly. The remote sensing technology could extract information for large scale area very quickly, so the remote sensing images were widely used in the investigation of earthquake-induced landslides. Generally the earthquake influenced areas are very large, so the remote sensing images are mainly medium resolution images. The landslide data extracted by medium resolution images couldn’t distinguish the different parts of each landslide. These data will induce big errors for the landslides topographic characteristics analysis and susceptibility assessment. The Subao river basin, Beichuan County, was taken as study area. There were many landslides induced by Wenchuan earthquake in the basin. The high resolution remote sensing images were used such as aerial images (ADS40) and WorldView images (both have a resolution of 0.5 m) to covering the whole basin. The interpretation signs for different part of landslides were built, and the generating areas of landslide were extracted. Then the topographic characteristics of landslides were analyzed.